The amount of software and data stored in and collected by onboard aircraft information systems is growing at a rapid pace. The onboard information systems use software and data for various cabin systems, avionics systems, and inflight entertainment systems, among other things. Airlines are responsible for updating the data and software on their aircrafts and timely downloading from the aircraft data collected during one or more previous flights and uploading new data. All these activities require fast data transfers between aircrafts and external networks while the aircrafts are on the ground, e.g., parked at the gates. While such data transfers may be performed over a variety of airport Wi-Fi or cellular links, availability of these links is generally limited to large airports. Furthermore, these links tend to be expensive, unreliable in terms of data transfer speed and connectivity, susceptible to security breaches, and sometimes lacking standardization.